George Lewis on covering wars for NBC

George Lewis, the recently retired NBC News correspondent in Los Angeles, reflects on the wars he has covered and a career "running toward the guns." He wrote the piece for the Zócalo Public Square website. Excerpt:

When I first stepped onto the tarmac in Saigon in August of 1970, I was a 27-year-old correspondent for NBC News with no training in how to operate in a war zone. My editors had sent me to be screened by a psychologist to determine if I was likely to crack under combat pressure, as my predecessor had abruptly told the bosses “I can’t take it!” and packed his bags. But the psychologist said he couldn’t really determine anything on the basis of a single one-hour session. The most in-depth advice I got from the front office was “keep your head down.”

Also from Zócalo: Last year's essay on the site, How Doctors Die by Dr. Ken Murray, created quite a web sensation at the time. It has now been selected for the collection "The Best American Essays 2012," to be published by Houghton Mifflin.